_arrived at Noumea, 
DECEMBER 18, 1913] x 
NATURE 
455 
the amenities of London, but from the point of 
view of university policy it has nothing to com- 
mend it. If the south side of the river were 
chosen, nothing whatever would be | achieved 
beyond the possible erection of a fine building for 
the university offices. No concentration of 
teaching institutions could possibly take place 
there, and, consequently, no university quarter 
could be created. The establishment of a univer- ; 
sity quarter is of the essence of the matter. 
The speech of the Minister for Education at the 
Birkbeck College on December 10 _ further 
strengthens the view that the Government is in 
earnest in carrying through this important educa- 
tional reform. The Minister dealt on that occa- 
sion with the recommendation of the Royal Com- 
mission for the establishment of an evening con- 
stituent university college by the development and 
re-organisation of the Birkbeck College. With 
this proposal we are in full sympathy. 
Considerable care will be required in dealing 
with the question of the continuation of the 
external degree. Signs are not wanting to indi- 
cate that some members of the external party 
conceive that their future would lie in some kind 
of alliance with those institutions that are not 
accepted as constituent colleges. Such a device 
would merely set up a sort of second, and inferior, 
internal side. The only justification for the con- 
tinuance of the external degree is that it should 
be truly and genuinely external. Every care must 
be taken in the efforts that are being made to 
secure agreement not to destroy the well-thought- 
out proposals of the commission. No one would 
think of instituting an external side at the present 
time; it exists and appeals, apparently, to a large 
number of people. If it is to be continued, it 
should be as a purely external and impartial 
examining board, unconnected with any particular 
educational institution. 
NOTES. 
Tue President of the Board of Education has pro- 
moted Mr. G. W. Lamplugh, F.R.S., to the post of 
assistant director of the Geological Survey of Great 
Britain, and Mr. T. C. Cantrill to that of district 
geologist, the appointments to take effect on January 
6, 1914. 
WE notice with much regret the announcement of 
the death on December 15, at thirty-eight years of 
age, of Dr. P. V. Bevan, professor of physics at the 
Royal Holloway College, and formerly demonstrator 
in physics in the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. 
Dr. R. R. Gates has received from the Royal 
College of Science, South Kensington, the Huxley 
gold medal and prize for research in biology. 
A REUTER message from Melbourne on December 
15 states that the steamer Pacifique, which has 
reports that the volcano in 
Ambrym Island, one of the New Hebrides, has for 
many days been in active eruption. On December 6 
six new craters were formed on the west coast, and 
on the following day Mount Minnie collapsed in the 
centre. 
NO. 2303, VOL. 92] 
Tue Board of Agriculture and Fisheries is engaged 
in an inquiry, through its horticulture branch, into 
the failure of fruit-trees to set properly through in- 
sufficient pollination. The Board will be glad to be 
put in communication with the occupier of any orchard 
of five acres and upward who has reason to believe 
that his trees are bearing less than the normal crop 
over a series of years. Fruit-growers who are plant- 
ing new orchards are also invited to communicate 
with the Board. 
Tue Italian Meteorological Society has decided to 
arrange an international congress to be held in Venice 
in September next. Prominence is to be given to 
the discussion of problems in connection with the 
higher atmosphere, and there are to be sections con- 
cerned particularly with climatology, aérology, and 
pure and maritime meteorology. The price of a 
member’s ticket is to be 10 lire, and special railway 
facilities are to be offered to those attending the 
congress. All inquiries and applications should be 
addressed to the general secretary, Barene Emile D. 
Henning O’Carrel, director of the Patriarchal Ob- 
servatory in Venice. 
AT a meeting of the executive committee of the 
British Science Guild held on December 9, it was 
announced that a permanent paid secretary had been 
appointed. It was resolved to support the movement 
which is being taken to induce the British Govern- 
ment to be represented officially at the San Francisco 
Exposition of 1915. Lord Sydenham, Sir Francis 
Laking, Sir John Cockburn, and others were added 
to the medical committee, and it was decided that 
the subject of reference to the Royal Commission of 
which Lord Sydenham is chairman should be con- 
sidered by the medical committee. The subject of the 
charges made by the Postmaster-General to persons 
using the wireless time-signals sent out from the Eiffel 
Tower in Paris has been considered by the committee 
on the synchronisation of clocks, and it was resolved 
to approach the Government upon the subject. 
By the regulations for the protection of wild birds 
and mammals in Egypt, referred to by Sir H. H. 
Johnston at the end of his article in last week’s 
Natur, the following kinds of birds useful to agricul- 
ture are not allowed to be shot, captured, destroyed, 
exposed for sale, sold, or purchased :—Egrets, larks, 
pipits, wagtails, warblers, wheatears, flycatchers, 
orioles, bee-eaters, hoopoes, green plovers, spur- 
winged plovers, and winged plovers. Permission to 
collect or keep any of these birds for scientific pur- 
poses rests with the discretion of the Minister of 
Public Works. All shooting is forbidden on Lake 
Menzala, and gazelles are protected in certain dis- 
tricts. Governors of cities and Mudirs of provinces 
have the right to refuse to issue game licences, should 
they see fit to do so, and to make regulations within 
the limits of their jurisdiction concerning close seasons, 
reserves, the kinds of animals that may be shot, and 
special conditions. The virtual effect of the pro- 
clamation is that henceforth the killing of any bird 
but a hawk, kite, or crow is illegal throughout the 
Khediviate. It is most satisfactory to note that the 
Egyptian Government protects by these regulations 
